[Standards] Re: Council (and what it does, and what it should do)

Of course there are three kinds: (a) Those that consider the protocol ready for use in production software and thus use in production software (b) Those that consider the protocol not ready for use in production software, but don't care because they want the feature and don't want to fix the protocol before using it in production software (c) Those that consider the protocol not ready for use in production software, but need to implement it for compatibility with other production software, because of those in (a) or (b) I'd say that: (a) should just step up and make sure the protocol is turned stable, if it can't be turned to stable, they might even learn why the protocol is in fact not ready for use in production, so it's good for them if they try to move it further. (b) is just irresponsible behavior. Irresponsible towards your users (by shipping things to them you consider broken yourself) and towards the wider community (by requiring everyone to now deal with what is not ready for production in their production software). (c) is the worst that we have it, but impossible not to have as long as there is (a) and (b). I'd hope we can get rid of (a) and (c) through changes in the process and (b) by education.